Obama's War Revisited

After watching President Obama tell the world all military actions are over and all military personnel will be out of Iraq by years end. I started thinking of the last ten years and our involvement in Bush's Imperialism. 

I wrote the following piece two years ago and we are still in Afghanistan with no end in sight. President Karzai has stated he wants the USA out of his country and last week he stated if Pakistan was attacked he would support Pakistan over the United States.This is our puppet. The man we supported to be its leader and now he would fight us. I have to ask once again what are we doing in the Middle East.


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I have been following the accounts of the fierce fighting going on in Afghanistan. The battle at a remote outpost and the attacks on other outpost over the last year are right out of Hollywood. But instead of Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. fighting Bedouins some place in the Middle East pin downed and outnumbered by relentless native fighters. Our heroes are unidentified American solders pin downed like their make believe British cousins.

The battle this past weekend was 12 hours of relentless firepower aimed at our heroic troops. From all reports our boy’s camp was breached and we held on till the air force could come to the rescue. 8 brave men died. In last summer’s attack at another outpost, the camp was overrun. That camp was dismantled days later because our men were sitting ducks.

Battles like this have been going on in Afghanistan since we started setting up outpost camps there. This year has been the deadliest year since our invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The battles are deadlier and deadlier. General Stanley McChrystal says we need more men or the Taliban may retake the countryside. We have been in this new assault on the Militants since before the Afghan elections. Militants that’s the new name the Department of Defense now calls the people who want to kill as many Americans as possible. These are the same “militant” fighters who fought the Russians in the 1980’s. They were called the Mujahedeen then and the weapons the current Afghan rebels are using against us were probably given to them 29 years ago by our own Government so the Mujahedeen could fight the Russians. That would have been the Reagan and Carter administrations. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

My gut reaction when I read these reports is “send more troops! ” That visceral emotion of revenge takes over my mind, like when I first saw those old action movies. I want the Afghan fighters dead. But, then I think of the Russians and the British before them and I say to myself

“Why are we still in Afghanistan?”

I know why good old George W got us there to begin with. Too bad he lost sight of the real reason we went to war. Instead he listened to Cheney and after driving the Taliban out of Kabul we stopped chasing Al Qaeda and the Taliban after they retreated into Pakistan. I'm not sure, nor do I believe our Military knows who these militants are. I just read a European report on Afghanistan stating many Militant fighters are actually coming from Uzbekistan via Pakistan. The war in Iraq was so successful in creating new militants out of presents they are coming out of the woodwork to fight the infidels and defend Islam. I also know there are some suggesting we should finish what we started. That is exactly what hawks said in 1968 to Nixon.

It is really time to bring the troops home. Not in two years. Not next year. The troops need to come home now. Start the pullout now and have all of our troop’s home by spring. Get the boys out of harm’s way and pull up stakes in the remote areas. Winter is coming the “militants” will be hunkered down in villages in Pakistan or in caves in the region. Perfect timing; just come on home. No one will notice. We won’t tell anyone. One day we are there, one day were not. Now you see us, now you don’t. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Take a ride on the Reading and proceed to the nearest C130 personal carrier and get out of Dodge as fast as we can.

It seems our puppet government in Kabul is as corrupt as another puppet government we propped up 40 years ago in Saigon. Richard Nixon told Americans we would be out of Viet Nam in one year. The war played on and on and we lost another 25000 men and women. It took us 6 more years to finally come home. We are not going to be in another Viet Nam, we already are in another Viet Nam. Richard Nixon inherited Viet Nam from Lyndon Johnson. Barack Obama inherited Afghanistan from George Bush. Just like Nixon, Obama told us he would end the war. I sure hope history does not repeat itself and President Obama has the guts to cut bait and get out of Afghanistan. We have seen so much death, so much destruction this decade. It needs to stop now.